I've been working on content writing and SEO, and I realized that the biggest improvements often come from checking the boring little things before hitting publish.

Here's my basic pre-publishing checklist:

1. Search intent
Does the article actually answer what someone searching the target keyword wants to know?

2. Title
Is it clear, specific and interesting enough to make someone want to click?

3. Headings
Can someone skim the article and immediately understand how it's organized?

4. Keyword usage
Is the primary keyword used naturally, without turning every paragraph into keyword soup?

5. Internal links
Are there relevant pages or articles that the reader can go to next?

6. Images
Are images useful and do they have descriptive alt text where appropriate?

7. Meta title + description
Do they accurately explain what the page is about?

8. Actual usefulness
This is the big one. If I removed the keyword completely, would the article still be worth reading?

I'm trying to move away from the idea that SEO writing means "write for Google" and more toward "write something genuinely useful, then make it easy for Google to understand."

Curious what other bloggers check before publishing. What's on your checklist?